Hand Washing

ARTICLES ABOUT HAND WASHING BY DATE - PAGE 3

Zung Wan Kim, a surgeon in Port Chester, N.Y., preps for surgery like a prizefighter before a major bout. First he punches a soap dispenser button with his foot and delivers a low blow to a faucet switch with his knee. Then he rubs the soap over his hands for more than a minute and rinses it off with graceful left and right hooks under the stream of water. He jabs at his nails with a sterile brush for more than another minute, rinses, scrubs his hands with a sterile sponge, rinses again, then repeats the initial wash and rinse.

Dear Abby: I've been reading your column for years, and must say I enjoy them. In the past, you have written about people using the bathroom and not washing their hands. Some people I have seen will rinse their hands, but don't use any soap. Don't they know that water alone won't kill germs? People should teach their children to wash their hands with soap. You don't have to have a college degree to know how to be careful. Won't you please print that item again, Abby? Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

The July 20 letter titled "Taste hygiene" prompted me to share my experience. I had a wonderful time at this year's Taste of Chicago. Upon leaving the festival, though, I couldn't help but notice the hundreds of portable toilets and the apparent lack of hand-washing stations. When a hand-washing station was finally found, it was sure to be emptied of all water. On July 16 I was diagnosed as having Hepatitis A. After learning of how the virus is transmitted (I'll spare you the disgusting details)

I worked at Taste of Chicago for nine out of the ten days. There were many portable hand-washing stations available, although not always in working order. At Father and Son Pizza, we shared a hand-washing station with our next door neighbor, Diana's Bananas. It was located in the back of the booth and fully functional. I was instructed to wash my hands each time I returned from the outside of the booth. Furthermore, there was also a large supply of moist towelettes at our disposal.

Wagging a finger: Researchers recently hid in stalls or pretended to comb their hair while watching 6,333 adults in restrooms in five cities last month. They said adults aren't washing their hands - and probably aren't handing down great hand-washing habits to kids - so we're telling you, wash your hands! By the way, Chicagoans spied on in a rest-room at Navy Pier came out pretty clean: 78 percent washed up. So what's the big deal about dirty hands? They spread germs, and you can get colds and diarrhea.

The customer was frantic when he pulled into Quikeez Hand Car Wash and Detail Shop in Dixmoor. He'd borrowed his wife's car to drive to the hardware store where he had bought a five-gallon can of blue latex paint. After getting back in the car, he decided to check the paint color. He fiddled with the lid, which suddenly flipped off the can, spilling latex goo all over the upholstered seat cushions. "He just looked at me and said, `What am I going to tell my wife?' " said John "Butch" Witcher, owner of the carwash at 2200 W. 147th St. "I got out the pressure washer and flooded the inside of the car. We cleaned it up with a wet-dry vacuum, and it looked good as new. "I saved him," said Witcher, adding that although the customer eventually did tell his wife about the incident, he didn't have to. Miracles aside, Quikeez Hand Car Wash and Detail Shop is among the growing number of independently owned and operated carwashes that specialize in detailing, which involves special attention to cleaning the interior and engine compartment.

In the face of new technology, even the old saw that "one hand washes the other" doesn't always hold true. Meritech Inc., an Englewood, Colo., company, markets automatic hand-washing systems that cost $2,450 to $6,250 and provide what some call "a Jacuzzi for the hands." A person thrusts each hand into an opening of Meritech's machines and the hand is bathed in a fine spray of water and soap that massages the hand and stimulates blood flow as it cleans. The experience is enjoyable for users, and many use the machine frequently, said Jerry Nigh, Meritech's president.

"Dirty Hands" (Les Mains Sale), Jean-Paul Sartre's intense political melodrama of 1948, is receiving a very rare, very rough production at the Mary-Arrchie Theatre. Written by the quintessential existentialist in the aftermath of World War II, when the map of Europe was being reshaped by the Iron Curtain, the play is set, with a bow to Shakespeare, in the mythical nation of Illyria. Hugo, a young Illyrian "intellectual bourgeois anarchist" and editor of the Proletarian Party's newspaper, has been recruited to assassinate Hoederer, a high party official who has often dirtied his hands in political expediency.

In caring for fine hand-blown crystal, hand-washing is generally recommended. If your kitchen sink has a sprayer attachment with a rubber nozzle, use it. The nozzle will provide a soft spray, and you`re less likely to crack a goblet if you accidentally strike it against the nozzle. Line the sink with a rubber mat or dish towel, and wash one piece at a time. Some makers say that an occasional run through the dishwasher is permissible, but they recommend using the top rack only, lest the jet action of the machine shatter the stemware.

Coming from a President with less-fatherly image, it might not be so well received, but it seemed quite natural for Ronald Reagan to tell us to wash our hands. The President more or less proclaimed as much recently in a statement promoting National Infection Control Week. It is serious, deadly business in hospitals, day-care centers and elsewhere: Two million of the 40 million people admitted to U.S. hospitals each year get infections. These hospital-related infections kill 20,000 patients and contribute to the deaths of 60,000 others.